It all began with a victory sign. When Abdul Quader Mollah, assistant secretary-general of
Bangladesh's
Jamaat-e-Islami
party, emerged from the supreme court on the afternoon of Tuesday 4 February, he turned to the press waiting outside, smiled, and made a victory sign. An odd reaction for a man just sentenced to life in prison.

When Mollah emerged from the courthouse, a group of online activists and bloggers assembled to
protestagainst the verdict, demanding that Mollah, like Azad, be given the death sentence. They set up camp in Shahbag, an intersection at the heart of Dhaka, near the university campus, and staged a small sit-in. They collected a few donations and ordered
khichuri
(a mixture of rice and lentils) to keep them going through the night. Word spread on Facebook and Twitter. The next day, a few news channels began covering their protest. By the end of the week, they had managed to put together the biggest mass demonstration the country has seen in 20 years.

The movement – centred around Shahbag, which some have renamed
Projonmo Chottor
(New Generation Roundabout) – shows no sign of abating. It reached its peak on Friday, when the organisers called a grand rally. Numbers vary, but are estimated to have been anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000. Traffic in the city, already notoriously slow, ground to a halt. Because it was a weekend, many people brought their children, their faces painted in the red and green of the Bangladeshi flag. The mood was like that of a fairground, with vendors selling fried snacks and spicy puffed rice; small groups within the throng sat in circles, singing, reciting poems and playing guitars. A tailor set up his sewing machine, making replicas of the national flag for people to wear around their heads. A play was staged at one end of the roundabout.

For people like me who are opposed to capital punishment, Shahbag has posed an uncomfortable question: can a movement that began with a call for the death penalty, with cries of
Fashi Chai! Fashi Chai!
(Let him hang!) go beyond a simple baying for blood?

But the call for Mollah's death is about more than revenge. He committed his crimes during Bangladesh's nine-month struggle for independence from Pakistan in 1971. Mollah and the 11 others who stand trial with him – 10 of whom are members of Jamaat-e-Islami – are accused of collaborating in war crimes with the Pakistani army. Between March and December of that year, the Pakistani army unleashed a campaign of mass murder against Bangladeshi civilians. As the political scientist Jalal Alamgir notes,
war crimes were ubiquitous in 1971
– as is evidenced by the discovery of mass graves throughout the country, Pakistani documents detailing operations and massacres, hit-lists of local collaborators, journalists' reports, photographs and video footage, and, most importantly, the eyewitness accounts of the survivors.

Since Bangladesh's independence, the state had done little to bring people such as Mollah to justice. The erasure of the war began in 1972 with the granting of amnesty to the Pakistani army officers who led the killings. During the decades of political turmoil that followed in Bangladesh, the war, and its crimes, were buried, while one regime after another contributed to the rehabilitation of the Jamaat party. Internationally, charges of genocide were never formally brought to the United Nations. The world quickly forgot the Bangladesh war.

That is why Mollah flashed his victory sign outside the courthouse. because, for the first 40 years of independent Bangladesh, no government had sought to try him; because he, along with the rest of his party, were courted by politicians at home and abroad. His fellow party leaders were elected to parliament and made ministers. None of them ever thought they would appear in court. One of Mollah's fellow accused is rumoured to have regularly announced in public: "I am a Razakar!" (war criminal).

The tide finally turned in 2008, when the Awami League (the party whose then leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, had led the independence movement) won a landslide victory at the general election. The campaign included a promise to set up a tribunal to prosecute those who had committed war crimes in 1971. The International Crimes Tribunal was set up in 2010. Since then, the court has been gathering evidence and hearing testimonies against the accused.

Because the trial has been so long in the making, the verdicts are watched by millions of people waiting anxiously to see if their families will finally get justice. And for them, after 42 years, a life sentence for a man convicted of mass murder, arson and rape was not punishment enough.

Abdul Quader Mollah offers a victory salute after being convicted of war crimes in Dhaka. Photograph: STRDEL/AFP/Getty Images

In addition to the perceived inadequacy of the sentence is an abiding anxiety about the way it will be carried out. It is ingrained in the public imagination that justice always takes second place to political expediency. Mollah knows that if his party or its allies were to come to power again, he would almost certainly be freed. That is why the protesters at Shahbag are calling for his death: it is the only way they can be sure the episode will come to an end.

In Shahbag, the organisers have refused to allow political parties to take the stage. Instead, freedom fighters and activists are invited to speak. Zafar Iqbal, a beloved children's writer and columnist, arrived on stage mid-afternoon on Friday. The first thing he did was ask for the crowd's forgiveness. "I have complained about your generation, saying that all you do is go on the internet and check your Facebook. I said that you would never come on to the streets. I am so happy to have been proven wrong today." A few days later,
the Bangladesh cricket team turned up
to show their support. With the chanting and singing spreading across the grounds, the protesters of Shahbag often resemble a jubilant flash-mob.

Shahbag is unique for Bangladesh on two important fronts. First is
the prevalence and visibility of women, who are among the core organisers. Unlike in many public spaces in Bangladesh, women have been highly visible. They frequently take the microphone to lead the crowd in chanting. Second is the movement's use of social networking on Facebook and
Twitter, and dependence on the 24-hour satellite news channels that have been covering the protest since the first day.

In the days leading up to the Mollah verdict, the Jamaat party called a succession of
hartals
(strikes), in an attempt to bring the country to a standstill. Activists burned cars and clashed with police. Four innocent people died in the crossfire. Now the Shahbag demonstrators are calling for an end to Jamaat and its student wing, Shibir. Though the Jamaat party only won two out of 300 seats in the last election, their presence as a powerful third party in politics has remained unquestioned – until now. There is a sense of a shifting political landscape: the people keeping vigil at Shahbag are young, possibly undecided voters who are looking for leaders. Who knows what this means for the old guard?

The next few weeks will be crucial for the Shahbag movement. There is fear, and there is hope. Fear that the protest will be co-opted by greater political forces; that violence will erupt and women will no longer be safe; that the cries for Mollah's hanging will overpower all other forms of resistance, and anyone who disagrees will be branded a traitor. But there is hope, too: that the protest will become a movement for a fair trial, and for a final, definitive and unbiased account of what happened in 1971; for the strengthening of secular, progressive politics in
Bangladesh.

I thank you, Tahmima, for finally capturing the history, purpose, aesthetics and importance of the massive shahbag movement it has taken most Western media over 10 days to figure out is happening. Thank god!

Wonderfully written article which could feel the pulse of today's Bangladesh. The voice of 'New generation arena' was neatly portrayed.

I feel sorry the likes of self-proclaimed voices4justice whose propaganda machines are soon to be extinct. Who fail to acknowledge the necessity of adequate and appropriate punishment for the proven and self-boasting killers are the next-generation traitors the nation must deal with caution.

Quite righteously, Bangladesh's voice for justice has erupted from its youth. Things will never be the same again. Bangladesh has already shed its amnesiac identity, history is being made each moment.

Thank you for raising your voice against the shady propaganda the war criminals and their paid associates are spreading, and informing the world about the essence of the Shahbag Movement. Thanks to people like you, the whole world will not be able to ignore the facts this time.

Although I do not agree the demand for the ending of Jamaati politics is a demand based on any new incidence of violence. Neither should you say the prostesters are looking for new leaders. If anything the citizens of Bangladesh have taken the initiative and leadership upon themselves to defend the nation against the destructive forces that have been excused for this long.

Do not underestimate the power of people. There was fear of greater political forces and danger against women and children in 1971 as well and we didn't stand down back then and we will not stand down this time. We are NOT SAFE now as long as the traitors of the nation and their followers continue to roam about freely, and anyone who disagrees with that IS a traitor.

A note for readers who might not understand how to place the comments calling foul because of 'political motivation' and 'unfair trials'.

--> The Jamaat-el-Islami party are astonishingly powerful in Bangladesh considering they were opposed to the nation's very existence and killed/raped thousands to try and stop the country from being born(in most wars where states are established, those who didnt want the state to be established dont get to become govt ministers a few years later)

--> despite this influence and years of impunity for its leaders who are widely known, and are now being proven, to be war criminals- there is a populist backlash

--> this is the largest protest the country has seen in twenty years- it is peaceful, it is non-partisan and it resolutely demands war criminals be tried and secularism be finally realised

= thus Jamaat are terrified, they are panicking, they are scrambling for help- claiming political bias, government backing and attacking the trials

= within the country they are using violence (see
here
and
here) to try and get what they want

Really objective article. As much as it must have been painful/embarrassing to lay bare the uncomfortable truth in the picture, you've done so, and you've summarized the events in clear non partisan manner. Thanks

even their demand for Mollah to get the death penalty hardly makes them some blood-thirsty mob. I mean reasonable people have a legitimate reason to be upset about this.

Look I'm not a fan of the death penalty, but if a country has democratically enshrined it into their legal code, then it ought to be reserved for the worst offenses. Deliberately orchestrating the mass-murder of hundreds of people (one out of 4 other major crimes for which Mollah was duly convicted for) definitely seems to fit the bill.

In fact, I believe that not only should countries with the death penalty reserve it for the worst crimes, but they actually must then enact that punishment for those crimes. The failure to do so cheapens its value for when it is used for lesser crimes and compromises the integrity and consistency of the entire justice system.

Bangladesh sentenced the infamous "Bangla Bhai" and five of his terrorist cohorts to death for their responsibility in the deaths of a few dozen people during the JMJB's bombing campaigns-and I believe rightly so. However, how is it that a man who is convicted of organizing the murder of 300+ people gets off with life in prison? That's wildly inconsistent and arbirtrary at best, if not outright crazy.

Tahmima Anam conveniently forgot to mention that the members of the Pakistani army who were accused of war crime was handed over to Pakistan to be tried by the Pakistani court, and they were not handed out amnesty. Instead, she put the blame on the then government, which was threatened by the Bhutto administration keeping more than 200,000 Bangladeshis marooned and imprisoned in Pakistan during and after the liberation war. The price Mujib administration had to pay for the pact that saw Pakistani war criminals leave the cage (Simla Treaty) was the lives of hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi nationals imprisoned and stranded in Pakistan.She also cleverly forgot to mention that the Mujib administration passed the two laws to try the perpetrators who collaborated with the Pakistani army in 1973, The Collaborator's Act and The International Crimes (Tribunals) Act 1973, the latter being the law under which the tribunal was set in 2010. Anam presented a picture that is too inviting to be misconstrued that attempts to try these perpetrators were only made as early as 2008.

Sometimes there are very little room to disagree. Quader Mollah left almost none, without the dissenter being called a traitor, since there are a lot of them, more than there were in 1971.Cheers.

Thank you for a great article that captures the state of mind of ‘aamjonota (general public)’ and connecting the dots over last 42 years to this February of 2013! Some people I guess are still out there anguishing (“pith’ti jole oder”- there is really no English word to express this feeling!) over the birth of Bangladesh and their views as evident by their comments only makes us more determined to pursue Justice once and for all to protect the so very hard earned sovereignty of Bangladesh.

Thank you for such a wonderful article! Your writing touched so many emotions of the people of Bangladesh; our hatred for the razakars, our rage when we saw Mollah's victory sign, our pride when we hear the slogans from Shahbag, our non-partisan unity for justice, secularism, and truth, and so many other emotions. Thanks again, and wish you all the best!

"The erasure of the war began in 1972 with the granting of amnesty to the Pakistani army officers who led the killings."

Disagreed.

The then government was bound to let go of the Paki officers because there were more than 200,000 thousand Bangladeshis stranded at Pakistan mainland at that time, who's safety depended on the release of these Pakistani officers.

A wonderful article. The Shahbag protests make me feel proud to be a Bangladeshi, and we want the war criminals and their spawn (like Voice4Justice spamming asinine crap down there) to be wiped out. This is our generation's war, our initiative to free the country of a plague that has been there for decades.

Thanks to The daily Guardian to published this kind of contemporary news, as million people around the Bangladesh & over the world showing their solidarity to The projonmo chattor-- in Dhaka shabag,
one of our British news paper has previously published some one eyed news to support those criminal who has committed crime against our frank innocent Bangladeshi, after they published this kind false news I use this news paper in my toilet as a toilet paper !All should do the same,
how can a normal person can still support those criminal J amat-e islami who not even yet made any public apologies to the Bangladeshi people !
and it is very surprise some of them (those who are now behind the bars ) has said there was not any freedom fight in Bangladesh !!they didn't want a freedom Bangladesh it is not their wrong !! it was a policy ?once the didn't want a free BD why should they are here they should go to pakistan,WE WANT ALL RAJAKAR, SHIBIR, ALBADOR , should leave from my beloved BANGLADESH---

It is sad to see that USA is following usual double standard. They see organisations like Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbullah as a threat whereas the Jamat-e-Islam which have same ideology is recognized as "Moderate Muslim".

Thank you Tahmima Anam for the write-up. I do have one question though. While I also agree that one of unique features include women's active participation in the movement. what I was disheartened to see however was the very limited presence of women up on stage on friday during the grand rally/meeting. And even more saddening was that no one said anything about it. I was sitting too far away to get the message to the front, or maybe it did go to the front but nobody addressed it!

@TaskinR - Banning them is a start. If the Jamaati were following true Islam, then they would not be rioting or attacking police. The people who claim to be Jamaat-e-Islam are really just thugs using religion as a smoke screen. If they are proper muslims then why are they attacking vehicles of innocent people who need to earn a living in order to support their families? They initiate violent protests and strikes with the poor being the ones who suffer the consequences.

Very well-written article, Ms Tahmima Anam. As someone else said upthread, it must not have been easy to write this.

It is very heartening to note that not only 'average' or 'common' Bangladeshis have decided to take a public stance on this issue that they feel strongly about, but also that they have been peaceful, focused, and organized. Women at the centre of organizing the protest events is another very positive sign.

I hope the peace remains in Shahbag and everywhere else.

My fear is that should the 'other' parties that are pro-Jamaat come to power, there will be a backlash. These same youth, women and men, who protested now will be targeted by those vengeful forces.

First time I see someone talk about the scopes of the movement. It needs to get beyond the simple baying for blood. As someone who has been there for the few days, the enormity of the public consciousness astounded me. But the turning of the movement into a festive air and people going there, because it is the thing to do. I think this could be the start of something massive, with or without the change of verdict. As Tahmima Anam puts it, we just need to make sure we don't sway to either extreme with our emotions like we usually do.

Thank Tahmina for a wonderful piece that gives a total picture of the situation right from the verdict was announced and subsequent events and also for capturing the history. Want to congratulate the Guardian for publishing such report. Hope the Guardian will remain with freedom loving people of Bangladesh.

Thank you Guardian for filling the void where the western media hasn't taken much notice of this amazing movement in Dhaka. To Tahmina Anam, thank you so much for writing this. No one is better qualified to write on this than you are :)

This is a well written article which shows that there are far more people who want to see the traitors of Bangladesh punished for what they have done. It's sad that it took so long to reach this point but thankfully it is moving forward.

There are a lot of accusations floating around that the trials are politically motivated since the majority on trial are members of the Jamaat-e-Islam party who were backers of the BNP when they were in power, hence it is seen as a way of weakening the BNP at the forthcoming general elections. The truth is that these men were traitors and were ultimately responsible for the deaths of thousands of bengalis during the war of independence. This is not about politics, it is about bringing justice to those victims of war crimes committed by these so called religious leaders.

Jamaat-e-Islam need to be banned as they are nothing but a bunch of thugs hiding behind the banner of Islam. The news show supporters of Jamaat-e-Islam rioting, attacking police and damaging vehicles. This kind of mindless violence is affecting ordinary hard working people who are trying to earn a living. There is even a report of a man being burned to death whilst he slept in his taxi and accounts of many other incidents where drivers and their vehicles have been attacked just because they defied the strikes and wanted to earn a living. People need to stand up to these thugs and eradicate them from Bangladesh for good.

You mentioned the Bangladesh Cricket Team visited the sit- in. Addressing the crowd, the Captain, Mushfiqur Rahim said how happy and proud he was that the Pakistani players were not participating in an on-going T20 tournament. This was reported in the Daily Star, Bangladesh. I am a little perplexed. What exactly does the absence of Pakistani players have to do with this issue? Surely they cannot be held accountable for 1971?

As a secular nation, we, the people of Bangladesh want an end to religion-based extremism of Jamaat-e-Islami and want capital punishment of its leaders who have been engaged with brutal murders and rapes of millions of Bangladeshis as well as loots and arson.

The voice from the very deep of Bangladesh’s heart now calls for an end to religion-based politics of Jamaat-e-Islami, and Islamic Chattra Shibir (the student-wing).

Bangladeshis now hope to abolish business institutions of Islamic extremists, their breeding centres, the state religion, religion-based politics, as well as restoration of the principles of 1972 constitution. We want to be a secular state not just by words, but also constitutionally.

We won't allow anymore "divide and rule" policy or stupid political statements.

It was the corruption and anti-people politics of the established parties that allowed the disgraceful rehabilitation of the jamaat back into bd politics. For now Shahbagh has a narrow focus on the war crimes tribunal but the bigger picture is going to be a sweeping away of both the awami league and bnp who have both consistently betrayed the promise of bangladesh for petty self-enrichment.

It fails to highlight the international concern with the heavily politically influenced judiciary of Bangladesh. HRW, Amnesty, British Lords, UN, amongst many other voices have been failed to be mentioned.

Alarming reports of abduction of a witness with the court ignoring the defences plea on the issue raises questions about the credibility of the tribunal. It is no surprise that only member of jamat leadership are on trial despite the pleas of war veteran and hero, Bangabir Siddiqui, for stopping the trial and investigation into war criminals within the govt, ignored. Indeed, request by jamat to hold a counter protest was turned down by the govt, and furthermore, police are heavy-handed with any informal gathering by jamat. TV channel critical of the govt has been shut down, newspaper publisher has been fire-bombed since Shahbag started.

With this as a backdrop to Shahbag, there are legitimate questions about the government's hand in all of this, the credibility of the movement relies on its demand for arrest and fair trial of all war criminals including those in the govt - Shahbag has miserably failed in this regard. Despite its Carnival appeal, the demand for hanging of members of particular political party stinks of governmental influence and is akin to mob justice. The martyrs of 1971 will turn in their grave if the wrong people are hanged, not in their name, and not in my name.---Further reading http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/mahin-khan/laws-of-passion-shahbag-protests

As a Pakistani I apologize for what happened in 1971. Not accepting the mandate of Mujib and not allowing him to become the prime minister of united Pakistan was an indicator of how unjust then the military junta was and how narrow was Bhutto's design for not being able respect Mujib as a majority leader. What happened after was a tragedy of worst kind, some thing all of us ashamed of and something which Gen. Mushraf as president and chief of army staff apologized to Bangladeshi nation and state when he visited Dhaka later. Still that is not enough ad will never be enough.

Abdul Quader Mollah's verdict of life imprisonment is inconsistent with the previous verdict of Azad--death by hanging, even though accusations against AQM are much more serious. This in itself shows the deficiencies of the tribunal. Many international rights organizations have already called for changes in the tribunal, but Bangladeshi government has always arrogantly declined such suggestions. The organizers of the Shahbag protest have also always denied such need, even after the skype conversation scandal, which showed the verdicts were already decided even before the witnesses were brought into the court. I find their hypocrisy appalling. 'Yes the tribunal is just and fair and perfect, we just don't agree with the verdict'. Why did we need the tribunal in the first place? A bit late I would say dear protesters, if you called for this 2 years ago, then the billions of dollars of the tax payers money could be spent in a better way.

The government, in its desperate desire to stay in power for one more term, 5 more years, is sponsoring this Shahbag demonstration with 24 hour police protection. On the other side of the city, away from the eyes of the media, we are seeing
the opposing demonstrations are being silenced, with open fires shot into the demonstration. This is unheard of. This government is manipulating people's emotion and staging a great drama.

The government, in its desperate desire to stay in power for one more term, 5 more years, is sponsoring this Shahbag demonstration with 24 hour police protection. On the other side of the city, away from the eyes of the media, we are seeing the opposing demonstrations are being silenced, with open fires shot into the demonstration.

Government sponsored or not, this is a peaceful gathering compared to the opposing demonstrators (mainly Jamaat-e-Islam) who carry out violent protests, attack police and damage vehicles. I don't know about the media coverage in Bangladesh but here in the UK, Bengali channels such as NTV, Channel i and ATN show all the protests going on in Bangladesh including the mindless violence that is carried out by the supporters of Jamaat-e-Islam. I have seen these supporters attacking buses with passengers still inside, attack policemen who are trying to keep law and order. It is only right that the police do whatever they can to control these hooligans who are trying to blackmail the country just because things aren't going their way.

To Javed Malik. Your personal apology is very much appreciated. From what many of us know, many Pakistanis today are simply not aware of their army's actions of 1971 in the now independent Bangladesh. And Pakistani governments have been very reluctant to issue a formal apology in case they have to explain to the Pakistani population what it is about! This needs to change.

Anyway, the current movement in Dhaka does not have much to do with putting any Pakistanis on trial. Under the terms of surrender to the joint Indian-Bangladeshi forces, Pakistani soldiers had to be pardoned and made immune from any kind of prosecution. This however did not apply to the local collaborators who helped the Pakistani army conduct the genocide. Such people through Bangladesh's twisted politics became rehabilitated and a force to recon with in the form of Jamaat-e Islami years later.

It is only now that the country is trying to correct this original sin of never having tried these war criminals. What you see in Projonmo Chottor (Generation Square) in Dhaka is the manifestation of this through the eyes of the Facebook and Twitter generation who have learned about 1971 through the nation's endless story telling through books, novels, dramas, films, music and newspaper reporting.